The Best Resources For Learning Why The Parent Trigger Isn’t Good For Parents, Kids Or Schools

As regular readers know, I have very serious concerns about the so-called “parent trigger.” This California law (which may be spreading to other states) allows 51% of parents whose children attend a “low-performing” school ( or parents who will have children attending that school in the future), to sign a petition and have major changes made — closing it down completely, replacing the principal and extending the school plus other changes, replacing the principal and firing 50% of the teachers, or converting it into a charter school.

I thought I’d put together a “The Best…” list of related resources today, especially since the California State Board of Education is reviewing potential regulations this week on how to implement the law.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning Why The Parent Trigger Isn’t Good For Parents, Kids Or Schools (not in order of preference):

Parent ‘Trigger’ Law Draws Attention, Controversy is the headline of a new article in Education Week. It provides a good overview of what’s going on in California, as well as describing which other states are considering implementing similar laws.

National Education Policy Center has published an important report on the parent trigger. Here’s an excerpt from their announcement:

the National Education Policy Center asked a group of researchers to describe what we currently know about the parent trigger. The result is a policy memo titled, Missing the Target? The Parent Trigger as a Strategy for Parental Engagement and School Reform, authored by professors from the University of Illinois, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and CU Boulder.

The authors raise several concerns about the parent trigger. They warn that the trigger focuses on changing school governance rather than improving students’ opportunities to learn. The evidence to date suggests that turning public schools over to charter operators or replacing school staff is not likely to lead to better student outcomes. But research has clearly established that students learn more when they have access to quality instructional materials and well-prepared teachers. The authors also caution that while the parent trigger offers a superficial appeal to democratic processes by “letting parents decide,” it ultimately thwarts continued, sustained community and parental involvement.

The entire post is worth reading, but the third part, which focuses on the parent trigger, I think is particularly good.

He has developed a chart titled “Parent Trigger vs. Traditional District Schooling Governance” that really lays-out key issues very clearly. Here’s how he introduces it:

Parent trigger is quite possibly the most ludicrous corruption of public governance and accountability on the education reformy education policy table. Put simply, parent trigger is the most ill-conceived subversion of governance I’ve seen out there in the reformy playbook.